My father used the read the paper creatively.  He never took what was written literally, but interpreted the meaning.  Any announcement would provoke an analysis.  Like Sholem Aleichem he would collect the facts, do the math, analyze motives, and come out with a different headline that always proved right.  I must admit that sometimes he had personal motivations:  When my mother was learning to drive he used to read about all the traffic accidents in the city.  It did him no good.

Why am I talking about this now?  Aljazeeza.  It looks so good to me after a few days of Israeli tv – But the news is antithetical.  We are monsters and not victims.  They say there is no place to escape and we say there are hundreds of miles of tunnels still undiscovered.   Now how do I do the math?  The reporter says there are no means of transportation and we see cars.  We of course cannot film in Gaza.  Only the army is there and they can show only what they do.  But the soldiers who are happy to talk to the press, say nothing about attacking civilians.  We seem to endure many deaths and injuries, and not from the front.

In the meantime the families of 136 hostages have been protesting all the aid we are sending over to Gaza.  One of the reasons for the rush may well be the pregnancies of the hostages – it will soon be too late for abortions.

(later) My friend asked for explanation -what abortions?  Oh, come on, women are marching in the street here demanding the return of the hostages because they can count.   Those women, in the tradition of hostages, have been inpregnated. 

I wonder if they put that on Al Jazeera,